CHARLES LAMB. CHARLES LAMB was born in the year 1774, of Lincolnshire family, as we gather from one of his Sonnets, "The Family Name:" “What reason first inspired thee, gentle name, Name that his father bore, and his sire's sire, Without reproach? Whence trace our stream no higher; In Crown Office Row Charles Lamb passed the first seven years of his life. The Temple was his home and recreationthe most eloquent spot in the metropolis. "What a cheerful liberal look hath that portion of it which, from three sides, overlooks the greater garden; that goodly pile 666 Of building strong, albeit of paper hight,' confronting with massy contrasts the lighter, older, more fantastically shrouded one named Harcourt, with the cheerful Crown Office Row (place of my kindly engender), right opposite the stately stream which washes the garden foot with her yet scarcely trade-polluted waters, and seems but just weaned from her Twickenham Naiades." At the age of eight years, Lamb was sent to Christ's Hospital, where he remained seven years. Among his school-fellows was Mr. Coleridge, with whom he was in close intimacy until his death, and whom he once invoked in these impassioned words. "Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the dayspring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee-the dark pillar not yet turnedSamuel Taylor Coleridge-logician, metaphysician, bard!" Lamb entered the India House at a small salary, and remained there thirty-six years, receiving a considerable stipend, until about the year 1825, when he retired with the liberal provision of two-thirds of his accustomed salary. So long a period of devotedness to commercial employment is, indeed, a rare record in the life of a man of genius. But Charles Lamb's friends were nearly all selected from authors, and were rarely individuals connected with trade. In early life, his intimacies and friendships were principally among that class of writers designated "the Lake Poets," with Southey as their leader. Lamb did not, however, join in the wild extremes of this artificial school; though, whatever he saw or genius in these writers he admitted, and he remained on terms of friendship with most of his Lake acquaintances until his death. In 1792 he obtained an appointment in the accountant's office of the East India Company, residing with his parents; and " on their death," says Serjeant Talfourd, "he felt himself called upon by duty to repay to his sister the solicitude with which she had watched over his infancy, and well, indeed, he performed it. To her, from the age of twenty-one, he devoted his existence, seeking henceforth no connection which could interfere with her supremacy in his affections, or impair his ability to sustain and to comfort her." The first compositions of Lamb were in verse, prompted, probably, by the poetry of his friend Coleridge. A warm admiration of the Elizabethan dramatists led him to imitate their style and manner in a tragedy named John Woodvil, which was published in 1801, and mercilessly ridiculed in the Edinburgh Review as a specimen of the rudest state of the drama. There is much that is exquisite both in sentiment and expression in Lamb's play, but the plot is certainly meagre, and the style had then an appearance of affectation. The following description of the sports in the forest has a truly antique air :— "To see the sun to bed, and to arise, Like some hot amourist with glowing eyes, Bursting the lazy bonds of sleep that bound him, Sometimes the moon on soft night-clouds to rest, Go eddying round; and small birds how they fare, To view the graceful deer come tripping by, To mark the structure of a plant or tree, And all fair things of earth, how fair they be." In 1798, Charles Lamb appeared before the public in conjunction with his friend and school-fellow, Charles Lloyd; the volume which they gave to the world being entitled Blank Verses. In the same year followed Rosamund Gray and Old Blind Margaret; but a tragedy entitled John Woodvil, a work of singular power and beauty, which came out in 1801, may be said to have established the writer's fame. It is true that Coleridge complained of "a certain over-imitation of the antique in the style" of this tragedy; but Lamb, in his Dedication to Coleridge, maintains, that when he wrote John Woodvil, he never "proposed to himself any distinct deviation from common English:" he continues, "I had been newly initiated in the writings of our elder dramatists; Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger, were then a first love; and from what I was so freshly conversant in, what wonder if my language imperceptibly took a tinge? The very time, which I had chosen for my story, that which immediately followed the Restoration, seemed to require that in an English play, the English should be of rather an older cast than that of the precise year in which it happened to be written." In this Dedication also, there is a noble outburst of Lamb's friendship for Coleridge: "Some of the Sonnets (which the volume contains), which shall be carelessly turned over by the general reader, may happily awaken in you remembrances, which I should be sorry should be ever totally extinct-the memory "Of summer days and of delighted years'— even so far back as those old suppers at our old * Inn, when life was fresh and topics exhaustless,-and you first kindled in me, if not the power, yet the love of poetry, and beauty, and kindness "What words have I heard The world has given you many a shrewd nip and gird since that time; but either my eyes are grown dimmer, or my old friend is the same, who stood before me three-and-thirty years ago-his hair a little confessing the hand of time, but still scarcely the same capacious brain,-his heart not altered, shrouding where it alteration finds." 66 In 1802 Lamb paid a visit to Coleridge at Keswick, and clambered up to the top of Skiddaw. Notwithstanding his partiality for a London life, he was deeply struck with the solitary grandeur and beauty of the lakes. "Fleet Street and the Strand," he says, are better places to live in for good and all than amidst Skiddaw. Still, I turn back to those great places where I wandered about participating in their greatness. I could spend a year, two, three years among them, but I must have a prospect of seeing Fleet Street at the end of that time, or I should mope and pine away." A second dramatic attempt was made by Lamb in 1804. This was a farce entitled Mr. H., which was accepted by the proprietors of Drury Lane theatre, and acted for one night; but so indifferently received, that it was never brought forward afterwards. "Lamb saw that the case was hopeless, and consoled his friends with a century of puns for the wreck of his dramatic hopes." In 1807 he published a series of tales founded on the plays of Shakspeare, which he had written in conjunction with his sister, and in the following year appeared his Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of Shakspeare, a work evincing a thorough appreciation of the spirit of the old dramatists, and a fine critical taste in analysing their genius. Some of his poetical pieces were also composed about this time; but in these efforts Lamb barely indicated his powers, which were not fully displayed till the publication of his essays signed Elia, originally printed in the London Magazine. In these his curious reading, nice observation, and poetical conceptions, found a genial and befitting field. "They are all," says his biographer, Serjeant Talfourd, carefully elaborated; yet never were works written in a 66 higher defiance to the conventional pomp of style. A sly hit, a happy pun, a humorous combination, lets the light into the intricacies of the subject, and supplies the place of ponderous sentences. Seeking his materials for the most part in the common paths of life—often in the humblest--he gives an importance to everything, and sheds a grace over all." * * * * * In "I wandered about thinking I was happy, but feeling I was not. But that tumultuousness is passing off, and I begin to 、understand the nature of the gift. Holidays, even the annual month, were always uneasy joys, with their conscious fugitiveness, the craving after making the most of them. Now, when all is holiday, there are no holidays. I can sit at home, in rain or shine, without a restless impulse for walkings. I am daily steadying, and shall soon find it as natural to me to be my own master, as it has been irksome to have had a master." He removed to a cottage near Islington, and in the following summer went with his faithful sister and companion on a long visit to Enfield, which ultimately led to his giving up his cottage, and becoming a constant resident at that place. There he lived for about five years, delighting his friends with his correspondence and occasional visits to London, displaying his social racy humour and active benevolence. September, 1835, whilst taking his daily walk on the London road, he stumbled against a stone, fell, and slightly injured his face. The accident appeared trifling, but erysipelas in the face came on, and in a few days proved fatal. He was buried in the churchyard at Edmonton, amidst the tears and regrets of a circle of warmly attached friends, and his memory was consecrated by a tribute from the muse of Wordsworth. A complete edition of Lamb's works has been published by his friend Mr. Moxon. The peculiarities of his style were doubtless grafted upon him by his constant study and lifelong admiration of the old English writers. Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Jeremy Taylor, Browne, Fuller, and others of the elder worthies (down to Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle), were his chosen companions. He knew all their fine sayings and noble thoughts; and, consulting his own heart after his hard day's plodding at the India House, at his quiet fireside (ere his reputation was established, and he came to be "overcompanied" by social visitors), he invested his original thoughts and fancies, and drew up his |